the butterfly theorem
by Strawberry Bijou
Summary: DarachCaitlin - and it's surprising really, how she can't stop thinking about him.


**pairing: **Darach/Caitlin  
**a/n: **I don't know if I like this or not… it's peculiar at times. For Ibuberu because she gave me the inspiration to write this. Please enjoy and review. Oh and this includes a tiny theory of mine of why Caitlin doesn't battle.

* * *

**the butterfly theorem  
**and it's unorthodox really, how she can't stop thinking about him

Everything starts with a neon blue dream, so vivid, so pristine.

She's sitting outside on her balcony, watching as pidgeys play and tease and fight with each other, and really there's a feeling in the air that shouldn't be. Like when your lips are about to meet someone else's, but instead of warm flesh, you only touch the unsolid air. It really isn't a wonderful feeling; on the contrary, it's quite unnice.

So she's picking at her virginal habits of wondering too much (are fairytales the myths that we wish were real? she thinks too much about illogical things) but really there isn't much else to do since he took up her battling privileges after the accident, which was ohsodevastating.

She should be appreciative that he won't (can't) let the legacy that her parents created go, but plainly, she isn't. She hates the servant (man) for it sometimes, hates him for it so so very much, and at times she even blames him because it was his pokémon who destroyed her hopes.

(it was he who destroyed her.)

And really, she shouldn't hold a grudge - her mother always told her not to - but it's hard when there are trainers and battlers and people littering all about, wanting a challenge, waiting for a dream to (never) come true. It's breaking her heart; but then again, she's letting it.

(she, in fact, welcomes the heart ache; she's only gotten a dose of it since the fateful day of debauchery and apologies)

So she plans on talking to him, really talking to him, instead of just deftly staring ahead like the daft in hate (love) she was. She was going to officially vanquish those unhealed scars in her mind that always yelped he did it and it was time to stop crying and finally say it's over.

(but it would never be over)

It's one in the afternoon, tea time in princess terms, and she's waiting for him to walk into her room but he never does. He's the sort of person who never misses a date, who has a calendar ingrained in his brain, and it was awfully odd of him to miss seeing her.

(maybe he's tired of all of the silent murmurings of _i hate you's_)

And she ventures out of her room and walks down the hall in her pretty pink dress, searching, but she can't find what she's looking for. He's like a ghost, disappearing when he pleases, but always there.

(this time he isn't)

So for the first time she ambles into the secret - forbidden room - with peach breath and sees it. The painting. The one her mother did when she was only eight and still believed in fairytales.

The watercolors bleed into the harsh cement, whispering things like, look at me look at me, but all she sees is that face and a letter on the floor. And she's got a curious case of _I-don't-want-another-broken-heart_ syndrome, so she almost running out of the room, but her favorite maid - Marguerite - is staring at her sadly like she's just lost another sibling.

So she silently steps back in and sees the blonde hair and blue eye of a man she once knew and the short lines from a letter of a servant she does (not) know.

_Lady Caitlin,_  
_My deepest apologies for I'm going to have to take a leave. I enjoy my work with you, truly I do, but there are some family issues at hand and I think you would want me to resolve them. I trust you will be well in the next month; Wendell Bingham will be taking over my job, that is, if you don't have anyone else in mind. I will be back before you know it._  
_Sincerely, Castle Valet Darach._

The lines fade away from her eyes. She doesn't know what to think; truly, she should be jumping for joy because the man she hates (loves) is out of her world, but there's that feeling again. And it's devastating, truly and horribly devastating because it's making her heart rip and mound itself into something that isn't legible anymore.

She didn't know he had a family. She didn't know he had a life.  
She only knew that he was hers for the taking.

And now it feels like he's abandoning her somehow. Like really he couldn't be mean enough, he's just got to go and disappear. But, she'll be fine, she always has always will be.

But that's not what the tears think.

* * *

So it's been two days and she's upstairs away from all the battlers and reality, just going from corridor to corridor, hoping to escape that horrid man. Supposedly, the old servant had asked the new servant (she still refuses to call them by their names) to take his place, but truly, he was awful. He smoked like it wasn't going out of style and grinned like a senile clown; she had no room for smokers in her heart.

(only people with warm weathered smirks that went often unseen)

And, surprisingly, as she passes by the long withered windows in the main hallway, she looks out and sees the ghost. He has two bags – each black and civil – and he's opening up the back door. She doesn't know what to think, but perhaps, she shouldn't think at all.

The seconds pass and soon everything's packed inside of the old English taxi cab, but her hearts gone missing. And strangely, he seems to notice that something is amiss too. So he glances up before he opens up the door and he sees her just staring down like the angel she was.

And he offers a wave while she offers a very un-regal finger.

(he likes it though when she gets her temper because, in a strange, universal way, it's like they're beauty and the beast except the personalities are turned oh so drastically)

* * *

A whole month passes by and soon she's growing tired of do this and do that and what the hell are you doing because really she's still young and still a princess in disguise. And it's stressing her; all the changes and goodbyes. Really, truly and honestly stressing her.

So she carefully climbs out of her window and sneaks down the roof and finally lands into the arms of the same old cab driver. She wants to ask him what the hell's wrong with him for letting that man go, but she doesn't. She just keeps quiet.

(but she's bubbling on the inside and she can't stay silent for long)

He asks her where to and she just doesn't reply;  
he seems to get the memo though.

_Anywhere._

So thirty minutes pass by carelessly and she shoves a hundred dollars into his open palms and escapes from the right side door. And she's absolutely, wonderfully surprised.

Because all in all, he did take her where she wanted to go in the first place; to the field where gilded butterflies do not sleep and dandelions whisper sweet nothings.

And those sweet nothings curl her in and she walks slowly but then, seconds pass, and she's out in a flat out run because this isn't dream crushing at all. More like a fulfillment in some odd way.

She doesn't sit down sweetly or nicely because, quite frankly, she doesn't give a damn. She just flat out lies down in the field of dandelions and closes her eyes and just wonders.

The minutes fade away quickly and the moon's all high up in the sky; she's almost sleeping, but then her phone rumbles in her cardigan pocket.

She brings it out and reads: midnight, time to return.  
but she doesn't want to go back; at least not before everything goes back to normal.

She wants everything to go back to the same old, same old, but that was an immense understatement. She wants the servant back so badly that she'd give up anything and everything just for him to battle for her again; just for him to talk to her. Just there to be a friend, and oddly at times, a fair weathered adoring boy. (but that doesn't suit him, he doesn't adore anything. He loves but doesn't adore; that's for teenage girls with frilly skirts that dream of humming I do. He's a love type of man, but he doesn't love anything)

So, mustering all the courage she has, she dials the number ingrained in her nineteen year old brain and almost hangs up at the sound of a hushed 'hello?' But she doesn't, she just brings it closer to her face, almost apologizing for her ways.

"Darach, I miss you."

And then she hangs up because, in all honesty, she hasn't forgiven him.  
At least not yet.

She expects him to come back roaring home soon, in his uniform that smells like fresh laundry, so she can finally say I'm sorry.

(but, in some odd sort, she also expects him to just pop by her in a second just to kiss her at the struck of twelve oh'one, but it's impossible because not all fairytale princesses can be woken by a kiss. But then again, she's no princess and he's no knight. And the sleep she's in is terminal and can only be awoken by an apology that she can't even muster)

So what she really a truly expects is for him to get past the issues, to fly across the past, and to just return safe and sound to her lovely home.

(at least that's what she hopes)


End file.
